New Museum using iBeacons to simulate minefield for Day for Mine Awareness

Hot on the heals of the MLB's expansion of the use of iBeacons in most of their ballparks, the New Museum in New York City decided to go a little more dramatic with iBeacons: they're making them into land mines. Well, simulated land mines. To mark the UN International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action on April 4th, the New Museum is simulating a minefield with iBeacons and an app called Sweeper for iOS and Android (though it's not going live until April 3rd). So you use your iPhone to probe for virtual mines, like this:

The Sweeper exhibit is a live experience of a virtual minefield. When used at a UN event, Sweeper (www.getsweeper.com) is the app that allows anyone to experience the fear of living with land mines (App is going live on April 3). Using iBeacon, a low energy Bluetooth technology to find a phone’s location, the Sweeper app detects transmitters hidden throughout the exhibit. When a person comes too close to a transmitter, it acts as a landmine and detonates, filling the user’s headphones with a jarring, visceral explosion followed by an audio testimony of someone’s actual experience. Users are then invited to make a small donation of $5 to help ensure no one ever has to go through what they just did.

This is easily one of the most innovative implementations we've seen for iBeacons. The public exhibit will be open on April 4th from 11am to 3pm at the New Museum in New York City. From basic check ins to virtual mine probing, it seems like iBeacons could prove to be very versatile — how else can you see them being used?